For serious discussion of the controversies, approaches and enigmas surrounding the origins and development of the human species and of human civilization. (NB: for more ‘out there’ posts we point you in the direction of the ‘Paranormal & Supernatural’ Message Board).

Yep. Absolutely no luck. I’m of the mind that a few of Schöner’s descendents lurk about that forum as the main form of attack was directed at my alleged disparagement of the family name. ;)

Anyway, I did notice in your ‘Weylands Smithy’ posts a healthy display of deductive reasoning and pattern recognition. Any chance that you can put those skills to good use and provide your assessment of my findings? If you get a chance I would very much appreciate it.

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For those that have not ventured over to the other forum or checked out the other two articles on my website, essentially I am addressing the issue of overscaling on Finé’s 1531 map of the Antarctic continent up to 2-3 times its actual size. As part of my evaluation I determined to resolve the method Johannes Schöner used to create his Antarctic designs, as Schöner was the cartographer actually responsible for introducing the design with his 1524 world map.

I first discovered that Schöner was not generating random landforms to depict the continent, as his 1515 depiction appears to be a world map. Then I established Schöner’s methodology for incorporating his designs:

1. Referencing a collection of ancient maps of unidentified landforms looking for a possible previous charting of the recent discovery,
2. Reconciling the new discovery to a similar feature on one of these ancient maps, and
3. Scaling the ancient design by matching up the primary feature to the new discovery and stretching the remainder of the map to match up a secondary point.

For his 1515 depiction Schöner appears to have matched the British Channel on Agrippa’s Orbis Terrarum to the alleged discovery of a strait hundreds of miles north of Magellan’s strait. Britain transformed into the tip of South America and the rest of the map was stretched so that the center of the circular Mediterranean Sea aligned to the South Pole.

Did Schöner apply the same methodology to his 1524 map as well? If he referenced an authentic map of Antarctica, then indeed he did. Schöner altered his design radically from his previous designs and there are two very clear reasons for this. Only two years earlier reports of Magellan’s voyage had arrived in Europe with the primary news being the discovery of Magellan’s strait which was reported to have a bay cut into the southern shore. Schöner forms this southern shoreline by apparently placing Atka Bay, Antarctica at the tip of the South American continent. The overscaling occurs when he attempts to extend a pair of islands included on his source map high into the Pacific to align with one of Magellan’s lesser known discoveries, the Unfortunate Islands. This may be why the islands more closely resemble the Antarctic Islands of Siple and Carney lying off the coast of Western Antarctica than the actual Unfortunate Islands.

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Schöner's Methodology For Cartographic Incorporation Of New Discoveries
1. Referencing ancient maps for his template: Agrippa's Orbis Terrarum (left) and an ancient map of Antarctica (right),
2. Reconciling the ancient maps to new discoveries: (A) Matching the British Channel to a purported strait and (B) Atka Bay to a waterway in the Strait of Magellan, and
3. Scaling the maps to new globes via a secondary point: (C) Aligning the center of a concentric Mediterranean to the South Pole and (D) the islands of Carney and Siple to the Unfortunate Islands high in the Pacific.

You can find out more about my discovery of Carney and Siple Islands on Schöner's 1524 map here.